We’re trying, but we’re not sure how

How many roads, how many times…that’s part of a folk song I sang when I was a kid. It is also part of the Hitchhiker’s codex,“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”
…So the search for the ultimate question began. Lacking a real question, the mice proposed to use “How many roads must a man walk down?” (the first line of “Blowin’ in the Wind“)

So while the quote below comes from part of a long silly list (#21 to be exact) of “things you should know by 50” I’m actually relived to see there is no order to the progression besides just the small steps it takes to get through the day. It is a bit of kitchen wisdom by Larkin Warren:

“After the first death, there is no other,” wrote Dylan Thomas. That doesn’t mean the ones that come after won’t break your heart, but it’s the first that punches your soul’s passport. Welcome, fellow human, to a different country than the one you woke up to this morning. The air’s different here; so is the scenery. Your knees don’t work so well; in fact, you may want to fall to them.”